100for2000 – Page 8 – Leaps And Bounds

Tag: 100for2000

20
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #29. Lisa Miller – Car Tape

categories: music

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2002 – #9. Lisa Miller – Car Tape
(Raoul)

Cover records are tough things to pull off. This might be the only one I’ve really loved since I started buying music. Lisa Miller’s Car Tape was huge for me and a few friends, who tried to hunt down every song on this album.

Lisa is from Melbourne, and had released a couple of country albums to some local acclaim. But Car Tape, which began as a bit of a side thing, became her biggest hit to date.

Firstly, what a great album cover. The backcover is an amazing photo that would have been the cover. The now-cover was to be the tracklisting on the back. Someone suggested they should change it and that someone was spot on. It’s just cool.

So a great covers record introduces you to new songs. And coming out of country music, I was slowly making my way towards soul music. This was my stepping stone. The gorgeous country songs on here were done with a soulful sadness. Some I know – No Place To Fall and Give Back The Keys To My Heart. Both are pretty good versions.

But the soul songs! I had never heard Arthur Alexander before, and this album opens with The Boy That Radiates That Charm (Alexander used ‘The Girl That…’). Bill Withers for me was a one hit wonder before this. I set about exploring.

Then, there is a spectacular, stripped down version of Colin Blunstone’s Say You Don’t Mind. I only discovered the original after this record, and was surprised how strings laden the original is. The same as George Jones’ We Love Eachother. I finally went out and got the Behind Closed Doors album – every bit as great as everyone said.

Then there’s Words For Sadness. Tim Rogers of You Am I and Lisa Miller were friends, and he wrote this song for her. This is what I’m told anyway, by my friend Sophie, who wrote the bio for this album. By coincidence, I was wrote the bio for the You Am I album that a new version of Words For Sadness would appear. Sophie and I imagined we were in some Gram Parsons fantasy argument (there is conflicting stories of who Wild Horses was written for, and whose version came first – the Stones or the Burritos).

The overall sound of the record is this smooth, smoky late night country jazz soul. I’m surprised there wasn’t a Patsy Cline song on here. I love the sound of this record – it’s gentle yet sexy.

But more importantly, it brought some awesome songs, and artists, and genres into my life. Thats what a good cover version should do.

Every so often, I think of songs I would cover for a covers album. Start to finish, 13 tracks – what point will I try to make. What genres should I dip into? The first such game of this, again with Sophie, was done after this record came out. I don’t have that list anymore but I’m sure it would be very different 7 years later.

And there was always talk Lisa Miller of doing another Car Tape. I hope she does one day. I want to learn more.

18
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #28. Peabody – Professional Againster

categories: music

2002 – #8. Peabody – Professional Againster
(NonZero)

Of course, you always want to support your friends albums. And the local scene. I tried my best, I’d like to think. Peabody was definitely mates. I tried to go to any show I could. I quite liked their Rock Girls Computers EP (“three things we know nothing about” they’d banter). They were fun guys. They wrote fun, funny songs. Then came Professional Againster and I became an unapologetic fan.

Peabody was always around. Bruno, in particular, as an around kind of guy. He volunteered at the same radio station as I did. He would be at the same shows as I went to. I’m trying to remember when Bruno and I actually met – I’m usually good at such things – but I can’t. We just were around. I remember Marianne telling me he was in a band.

Two other guys rounded out the band – bassist Ben Chamie, not so around but his brother used to visit me at the record store, shoot the breeze a little, and by this time, Graeme Trewin. I first saw Graeme in a band called Pennidreadful. He has the reputation of being the nicest guy you’ve ever met. One time he played with a band that supported Superjesus and we could not get a negative word out of him. He hit the drums so hard too. Theory was he bottled all that negativity into his playing.

So enough about them, onto the record. After a couple of pretty good EPs, I reckon they knocked it out of the park with their first album proper. Instead of doing the thing that ALL bands seemed to do, which is to go into the studio, do perfect takes, double some guitars, make pristine vocal takes – they deliberately went more raw. A marked difference from their EPs, Professional Againster was an abrasive album.

The songs were also a lot better. Gone were the cheap jokes, replaced with something more tender, and a story telling style (on the part of Chamie, it seems, who wrote the story songs). Best of these is Stupid Boy, a meticulous lyric about a misadventure on a Friday night, yet it probably rocks hardest on the record. Peabody had found this nice balance.

There’s a handful of really great rockers – all of which did only ok business on radio. This Mood Has Passed, Rockwell, Butterflies and Clowns…all clever, all rocking, all melodic, all better than anything than before. But then there are a couple of important departures.

The Greatest Compilation Of All Time ends the album, and it’s by no means the first song about listening to songs – but it’s one of the very best. Never cutesy or winking at you about how clever it is, it’s gorgeous, inviting music makes you want to sit back into your own mix tape and get lost in it. It really was miles and miles more than I expected by the fun three piece rock band from the next suburb.

Next is She’s Heading Unto Zion. A great riff, a decent mid tempo rocker, but the song – a goodbye to a girlfriend who just has to leave. The lyric breaks your heart, but again, Peabody escape sentimentality and sugariness. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s still probably their best song. I used to perform this live when the band wasn’t looking.

Finally, Do You Wanna. Finally – a love song. Again, not schmaltzy – just the simple excitement of being young, living in a big city, hoping you’re good looking and, the greatest come on ever in rock history – do you wanna hang out with me? I mean, of the million love songs I have in my collection, this one actually used the words I use. I have thought about this song when it came to just about every girl I’ve ever liked, even in the slightest. I guess this is what falling in love in Sydney, circa 2002 was like.

Even better than all that though, Peabody got even better. They would knock me off my feet again in 2005.

(I cannot for the life of me find a single video, live or otherwise, from this album)

18
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #27. The Vines – Highly Evolved

categories: music

2002 – #7. The Vines – Highly Evolved
(Capitol)

There is a lot to say about the Vines. They were the great white hope for a moment there, and I totally believed it. Then they got mangled up, came out as something different, salvaged a great record in Highly Evolved from the ruins, and then went further into freefall.

This is a record and a band that most people I know hate fiercely. I just want to acknowledge this up front, and that there is no hope for a lot of people to ever like this record. This story is not excuses or reasons. It’s just a story.

The Vines story started at the radio station I was working at back in 2000ish. That station, FBi, had a Vines live session (the drummer’s brother was a regular gig goer, passed the tape to someone, and it got to us). The tale told is the guys at Ivy League Records heard this live session and tracked the band down.

I’d known the guys from around. I knew the drummer brother guy. Some of them would come into the record shop I worked in, and we’d chat. I’d see the singer at gigs and we’d chat about Muse. Just normal, life stuff. Yeah, they kind of had that weird/shy indie musician thing, but then again, so did most people you might see at the Hopetoun Hotel on a Wednesday night. We were all freaks.

So, you see, they had this tape. This awesome, awesome tape. Recorded at home. Raw as fuck. Drums sound like a train hitting a paper bag. Mixed so badly that the vocal harmonies were a spooky, psych mess. Songs that went for a minute, and if it had a chorus it was likely sung twice only. The songs were about weird things, some anthemic, some just weird about wildlife and gardens. In short, it was brilliant.

There were a few of us that thought so. As a favour to the Ivy Leaguers, I took that tape and put it on CD (I was an early owner of a CD burner). I also made a little cover. A later, slightly more polished set of demos, with some new songs were recorded, and at the end we had this double CD of demos, all of which I thought were brilliant, that was being sent out to people.

Nobody liked it. I remember one night, one of the Ivy Leaguers saying to me that they don’t know how they can keep the label running, even into tomorrow. This is WITH the Vines on the books. Eventually, we gave the demos to Engine Room music, a new company, and somehow, someway, they got the Vines a deal.

In America.

Where they loved them. Capitol were wild about the band. I mean, yeah, they were young and whatnot but they were exciting – and exotic. This was well before the Strokes or the White Stripes became big. So, they were sent to America to record the album.

All the while the legend of these demos grew back home, and the Vines started gigging regularly. At a You Am I gig, we made up some 4 track samplers of the demos and handed them to anyone who cared. (Andy Cassell, the smart man that he was, realised a lot of money could be saved by making the artwork just a stamp)

Even to this day, people tell me how I handed them a copy of that Vines demo. When the band was at their peak, these were going for hundreds of dollars on Ebay. I’m pretty sure I still have a few at home. Even more interesting is when someone pulls out the whole 2CD set that I originally made in my bedroom with my colour printer. That still happens as well. Cos, you know, we were there when this band was special.

Rusty from You Am I had a new label that just did 7”s. The Vines released a 7” on there that was also, once, worth big bucks. It was that CD2 of demos, recorded at Zen studios. The songs were sounding so great live. Drown the Baptists, Winning Days, Get Free. I remember one show where Craig did Sunchild solo acoustic.

So what was so great about these demos? Part of it was what was going on with music at the time. Rap-metal was big. In Australia, this electro-rock best summed up by Alex Lloyd or Regurgitator were huge. And these guys were young, thrashy, pure. And then they started covering Outkast. And Teenage Fanclub. Fuck man, you should have been there.

But things were getting darker behind the scenes. Craig, the singer, had a problem that no one would know about for years to come. His Asperger’s was the cause, but the symptoms were scarier. Erratic behavior, bouts of going missing, and some of the shows came a little too close to falling apart.

Three school friends left for LA to record a debut album. Only two were left by the end. Drummer, David, sick of it all, left the band. It effectively ended the Vines Mark 1, the one that us secret few really loved.

They got in Rob Schnapf, on the strength of his work with indie masters Guided By Voices. Some session drummers straightened the songs out, and the pristine production lost a lot of the lo-fi atmosphere. For me, this is like Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl – the sketches are great, but why are you just doing them exactly the same but worse?

(As an aside, another label, XL, one of the biggest indie labels in the world, just missed out on working with the Vines. And their idea was to put the demos out as the album. History may have been so different. Especially in the slightly more caring hands of an indie)

And, it has to be said, thanks to the Strokes, the album was a hit. Washed up in the new rock hype, NME fell in love with them – yet, so few of the songs actually fit the narrow genre of ‘New Rock’. Get Free was all over the radio, world wide. The Vines had arrived.

I do like this record. A lot. It was still very much the Vines. They had the hippie element – that naive world view of sunshine and gardens, almost an 8 year old cartoon of the world. But there was the 8 year old nightmare as well. Outtathaway and Highly Evolved are paranoid classics.

But as they sing themselves, it’s 1969 in their heads. Along with the best songs from their second album (Winning Days, Sunchild that are on those very first demos etc), it’s is a jammy, proggy style of music that dominated their live sets. Dandy Warhols were mentioned a lot. I know this put some people off, expecting Strokes II.

The big budget recording brought out some brilliant stuff. Factory now cut tough with it’s jagged guitar sound. Best of all is Homesick, with a proper piano and all the bells and whistles. Sunshinin’ just simmers along so nicely. We thought it would be big – and it was.

And then it died. Public violence and breakdowns, losing Patrick the founding bassplayer, a lackluster second record… but all that are sidelines to the bigger problem: the world moved on.

I thought Craig was a genius. The musicial ideas I heard on those demos were so far out. Highly Evolved brought out one side of them, and radio and press leaned towards the rockers. A lot of those great demos became b-sides. And it took another crazy Australian guy would make the kind of crazy albums I thought Craig would make.

There is so much regret, mistakes and missteps in the Vines early story. A really good album came of it. Some lives were changed forever. But, god, what could have been…

18
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #26. Darren Hanlon – Hello Stranger

categories: music

2002 – #6. Darren Hanlon – Hello Stranger
(Candle)

Last time on the Darren Hanlon story…. our hero had just released his first EP, and got his first national radio exposure with Falling Aeroplanes. The story continues with Hello Stranger.

I don’t think I missed a single Darren Hanlon Sydney show in the first five years of this decade. And every time, the shows would get a little bit bigger. And more and more new songs crept into the set. So we got to know these songs live – meet them, great them, work out what they were about, pick out our favourite bits – all before it made the eventual record.

Hanlon was on fire at this point – inspiration coming from all angles. A tour of Europe provided three amazing, and amazingly different songs.

The Kickstand Song – Hanlon met a girl on a train who claimed her father invented the kickstand. So from that he wrote a song from the view of that man – and why not?

Operator, Get Me Sweden – a long distance declaration of love, with an obscure reference to the Vasa, a Swedish war ship.

The Last Night Of Not Knowing You – a hint of things to come, and one of the last songs written for the album. A genuinely touching ballad without a hint of novelty, about the happenstances that lead to a perfect meeting.

And the rest of the album is just as good. The most upbeat song was naturally the single – Punk’s Not Dead. Sweeter still is He Misses You Too, You Know and the hospital break-up story of Cast Of Thousands.

In retrospect, it’s a showy album. It’s too reliant on cheap songwriting gags – it’sthe lyrical version of a special effects movie. Hanlon would get better as he got subtler with future albums.

To be continued…

18
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #25. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To the Head

categories: music

2002 – #5. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To the Head
(Capitol)

This is, I think, the highest selling album on this list of 100, and by some margin. Amazing that 7 years down the line, Coldplay are still friggin huge. And even though everyone knew them already, it was with A Rush Of Blood to the Head that I discovered a place for Coldplay in my life.

Now, I thought Coldplay sucked. Like sucked HARD. I remember, on their first record, comparing them to a quick wank – satisfying and ultimately pathetic. Such moody, whiny bunch of middle class knobs.

That’s exactly how I felt when I walked into the big tent in Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass festival. It was raining, I just got into a fight with someone, and I was sulking, I wanted to be alone (with a large crowd and the festival headliner). And then Coldplay took to the stage.

And they blew me away.

This terrible, rainy night, on comes Coldplay – ever positive and ever pleasing, even when you don’t want to be pleased. Starts with a smile, and ends with a sing-along. They opened with Politik, the song that opens this album, and I never knew Coldplay could be so loud.

By the time Chris Martin went to the piano, and sang the Scientist, I was hooked. I’ve been a casual fan ever since, and will defend them to the hilt. They want to please people. Get over it.

The rest of that terrible, rainy night went by ok after that.

I’m sure better in depth studies on this album and it’s historical impact can be found elsewhere. I wont bother you with those.

17
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #24. The Streets – Original Pirate Material

categories: music

2002 – #4. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
(679)

I hadn’t heard anything like the Streets before I heard the Streets. I was working at Warners at the time and everyone was raving about this Streets record – Original Pirate Material. So I gave it a go. It blew my mind.

It actually wasn’t that different to some of the music I loved. Mike Skinner’s use of lyrics is as sharp as Elvis Costello. The British-ness was no more British than Blur or Supergrass. Even the song structures – it wasn’t like there was long bits of beats with no lyrics or ideas – in a way this could be tal;king blues over synths.

All that is well and good, it explains why I didn’t hate it. But why did I love it?

I loved the politics of it. I loved the self reflectiveness. Two things that had abandoned rock, who after the Strokes, had lost all sense of irony, subtext and intelligence.

The two big early songs spell it out. Has It Come To This? is a manifesto, with Skinner asking why the rave scene he used to love has grown so shallow. even better is Let’s Push Things Forward – hooked by one of the best lines ever to use in a music argument

You say that everything sounds the same
Then you go buy them

When was the last time you heard anyone in any genre say hey, our music can be better, in a song? Chances are Lets Push Things Forward was it (it also has a dated shout out to Alta Vista).

The social commentary is spot on as well. Geezers Need Excitement is such a simple statement on England’s thuggier side. More powerful is The Irony of It All, a debate between a drunken football lout and a pot head.

It’s not all heavy handedness either. The brilliant Don’t Mug Yourself is a great tune, and the type of Streets fun that Skinner would return to again and again.

It had really been quite a while since I heard an album that threw so many big ideas out there. Yet Skinner really, truly loved the music. It’s best summed up on Weak Become Heroes – a gorgeous nostalgic look back at the musical heroes that inspired Skinner, who finally got their day in the sun.

Skinner claims the next, fifth, Streets album will be the last. He has made four close to perfect albums so far, and a fifth to wrap up ten years of music will be perfect. It will be like Felt. I hope he pulls it off, and he joins the pantheon of heores he sang about on this record. and 7 years later, he definitely did push things forward.

17
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #23. Paul Westerberg – Stereo/Mono

categories: music

2002 – #3. Paul Westerberg – Stereo/Mono
(Vagrant)

I love the Replacements and I loved every Paul Westerberg solo album. But after the flop of Suicane Gratification, it just seemed like it was over. I was (and still am) a regular visitor to Kathy Shine’s fantastic Man Without Tieswebsite. And it seemed like he had disappeared off the map. So with great surprise, he released two albums in 2002, the double set of Stereo/Mono. And it’s utterly, utterly fantastic.

After high profile producers and production budgets, Westerberg finally left the majors game and spent some years in the wilderness. When he came back he had changed. He stopped trying to be the next Tom Petty and went back to being pure Westerberg. Sparingly (and often badly) recorded songs from his basement studio, he fires off classic after classic.

The first part of the set, Stereo, are the more considered songs. They share a sadness, but also a great wit. The opening couplet is one of Westerberg’s all time best:

Baby learns to crawl
Watching Daddy’s skin

And from there it doesn’t let up. The ode to a deceased friend in No Place For You, and the kind of losers-with-hope anthems that he invented with Boring Enormous and We May Be the Ones.

The flip side is Mono, the rock side (release separately under his pseudonym ‘Grandpaboy’). 11 rocking and rolling blues pop things, full of smiles, sadness and style. The self-depreciating Silent Film Star, the two line wonder Eyes Like Sparks, the touching 2 Days Til Tomorrow and the truly touching Between Love And Like…these are Westerberg’s best rockers since Pleased To Meet Me, 16 years earlier.

There is a rawness in every song, and despite the title, they sound of a piece. Some songs cut in and out, and end abruptly. It’s subtle and not as annoying as the same trick he did years later on 49:00. The feeling is voyeuristic – Westerberg rocking out on his own in his basement, being completely honest.

Having pretty much lost it all, Westerberg was back and he even took to the road. Following all the fan updates on Man Without Ties – I got quite emotional. Reading about people finally seeing PW play, and how he would play the hits and the great new songs everyone loved. It seemed in a small way he was getting his due. And after years of being unable to, we could give back to him. The shows were a big success.

All this is captured on the Come Feel Me Tremble DVD, which ends with footage of PW signing records after the show. A wonderful montage, showing the huge lines, and Paul’s reaction as he signs old records given to him. One person even gives him a custom Paul Westerberg baseball bat, and the man almost cries.

I’ve still never seen the man live – and likely never will. But In an age where people never really disappear or bands never break up, it’s hard to fathom how exciting this resurrection was. And these two records are the best of PW’s solo work. If you’re a Mats fan who never went beyond, here’s the place to start.

16
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #22. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

categories: music

2002 – #2. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(Nonesuch)

I’m not sure if you need this blog to tell you how great Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is. Wilco’s fourth album knocked it out of the park.

Worth gave me this album, on cassette, ages before it came out. He knew somebody, somehow. He gave it to me at the Vic On the Park in Marrickville, after some show. By the time I walked away from the venue, onto the train and made it home, 40 odd minutes later, the album had finished. Looking at the lights of the city fly by on a late night neon lit train is the best way to hear this record.

I was very happy to see the towers on the cover in Chicago earlier this year.

Go out and get it if you don’t have it, then check out the movie I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, one of the best rock movies/docos in recent years.

16
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #21. Nada Surf – Let Go

categories: music

2002 – #1. Nada Surf – Let Go
(Liberation)

Let Go by Nada Surf is my favourite album of the decade. I have worn it out. From the second I heard it til now, it is still an album I return to over and over. It has come to mean different things, my favourite songs have changed, but this album has always been in the forefront of my mind. I’ve quoted so many of it’s lyrics, ripped off many of it’s songs, still put songs from this album on mix CDs. This is my soundtrack to the 00s.

I had just started at Warners and was getting to know Simon Killen (where are you now, buddy?), an A&R guy at Liberation. We chatted about music and one day, months before it was released, he gave me this record and said “I think you’ll love this.” He wasn’t fucking wrong.

I had heard of Nada Surf – they had that one hit back in the day called Popular. I’m a huge fan of 90s one hit wonders but that song was not one of the better ones. So it was with some hesitation that I approached this. But they were a completely different band.

It’s pretty straight pop rock, with a shiny 80s vibe. But it’s the amazing songs – written mostly by singer Matt Caws – and the theme of redemption that really hit you. It’s like the best You Am I, Springsteen or Replacements songs – there is a passion for change, that life can be better. But it’s not pub rock – it’s something far prettier.

I have stories for just about every song.

Blizzard of ‘77 is what they opened with when I first saw them. It was just about as empty as I’ve ever seen the Metro theatre, but I didn’t care. I had been raving on about this band so long, and thanks to Liberation and the low ticket sales, managed to drag quite a few people along. I thought I would explode with happiness when they played this song.

The Way You Wear Your Head – I think of sitting in a friends car, and hearing Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me, and finding out Nada Surf had ripped this bit off. I also remember Casey showing me how to play this song one afternoon at his old place.

Fruit Fly – I think about this song a lot, but the story I will tell here is Casey mentioning one day how clever the guitar bit at the beginning is, how he’s patting the strings. I had no idea what he was talking about until I saw them do it it live and it made sense. It was clever.

Blonde On Blonde – this was a hit single in some places. One of my many fave lines is “I have no time I want to lose/To people with something to prove”. Still a mantra of mine. I thought it was so cool to write a song about an album, an idea that I stole and eventually turned into a song about a series of Joni Mitchell albums.

Inside Of Love – I was pretty lonely for years, and this song was my little wrist slashing anthem. I remember so many late night calls to Marianne, one of my best friends living in the UK. With my sleeplessness and crazy hours, we were actually awake at the same time. And the lines

Making out with people
I neither know or like
I can’t believe what I do
Late at night

They were discussed a lot in our calls. I got this added to the first FBi radio full broadcast playlist, which is quite funny. Probably the one and only time they played this band.

Hi-Speed Soul – makes me think of Death Disco, and going out in Sydney. I wasn’t drinking, but I didn’t want to go home, and as a result I spent too much time in shitty indie dance clubs full of fuckheads. I would sit there for hours barely talking to anyone. What a waste. The only solice was a good song or two that I could dance to.

I also remember the strange shampoo commercial this was used in, and how I hope they made a lot of money on this.

No Quick Fix – same as above, the feeling that I can’t stay home at nights. The excitement of living the night life, the disorientation and the come down. We ripped this song off something savage in the Reservations. I was pretty sad to find this didn’t come on the US version of the album, and hence is not on my vinyl copy.

Killian’s Red – I never loved this song as much as some others until I saw it live. I like how I gave Lucy this CD only a couple of years ago and she told me her sister loved this song best. I’m glad someone does. I still think it’s a fantastic song – so sad and struggling.

La Pour Ca – it’s the yellow submarine of the album. I like it sometimes, I like the fact it’s in French (this band has a series of French tracks).

Happy Kid – One of my all time faves. It pretty much spells out how I felt for years. I was a happy kid, and I was not happy when I wasn’t happy. I shared this album with a special person at the time, and this was her favourite song as well.

I really love the line about how the candles make the bottles glow, a scene I’ve noticed on hundreds of bar tables ever since.

Treading Water – a lovely song, and again, ripped off shamelessly by my old band. This is probably the best example of that Replacements-ish ‘come on things can be better’ feel. Always rushing, always late…quite existential.

Paper Boats – an amazing song to finish on. Rightly or wrongly, I felt I had too many people coming at me and wanting things from me at this point in my life, especially emotionally. That awesome second verse – the dialogue of an argument – reminded me of too many uncomfortable situations. Tell me what’s wrong. What are you thinking about. How do you feel about this? Just people constantly taking strips off eachother to make themselves feel better. This song – it helped me realise there are certain types of people that aren’t good for me. We are set in our paths – and it’s the way it’ll always last.

There will be more stories to come. I’m not done with this album. I can’t believe I’ve known it for so long. That’s what a great album can do.

16
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #20. Youth Group – Urban & Eastern

categories: music

2001 – #10. Youth Group – Urban And Eastern
(Ivy League)

Youth Group loom large over the decade. Originally from Canberra, they started off in Sydney just as I was old enough to go to gigs. They are my favourite Australian band of the last ten years. Probably tosses and turns with one other as being THE band of the decade for me. They will recur again and again on this list, but right now lets talk about their debut album Urban And Eastern.

Youth Group had released four singles by the time this album came around. They were great, they were fun, and they were already my favourite band on the Ivy League label. Then they went on tour with Gaslight Radio and Gersey and came back sounding very different. That bright little pop band now opened up to something spookier, with long guitar freak outs and moody elements.

They brought this to their debut album. Blue Leaves, Red Dust is as fine an opener as any song I’ve heard. Starting slow, it tells of a trip through the Australian countryside for a funeral, but also looking for a musical voice that’s not from “Tallahassee or Nashville”, before the song does a take off into the sky.

The funeral theme is closed out in the second last track, Spry Griever. Another 7 minute plus epic, it’s a heartbroken scream of a song. Sadder still, months after this album came out, there was a death in the family of the Youth Group ranks. Those shows immediately after were of stunning power.

In between those two, there are plenty of the quirky pop stuff that made Youth Group’s early name. Happiness’ Border has a Pavement feel but never loses Toby Martin’s unique voice (and lyrical concerns). Booth Street is the most touching love song Martin had written to date. Elsewhere, I Don’t Care, written for bassplayer Andy Cassell’s wedding day, is still a rush of fun and romance.

It’s hard to find heros in life sometimes. I loved so much music, but I didn’t actually want to be like Tim Rogers of You Am I, or Jeff Tweedy or Wilco. Or Iggy. Or Jagger. I wasn’t as tough as that – and I didn’t want to be. I was on the look out for something new – after my dalliance with po-faced alt-country – and found it with Youth Group. They were just guys in Sydney. They weren’t wacky pop stars, and they weren’t tortured artists. They weren’t Dandy Warhol type posers… they were just so natural.

And clever. Those early singles and this album especially, they looked like they were having fun. And I wanted to have fun too. I wanted to wrote witty things, and bright melodies. I wanted, like this band, to write songs that mentioned animal rennet, the Mascot ANZ and Chris De Burgh. Having loved music so much, Youth Group were really the catalyst for me to start taking seriously the business of making music. I moved to Newtown and got some decent guitars after this.

They went on to do so much more than this record, but god I saw a lot of shows where they played a lot of these songs. They got so good so fast. And as excited as I was about this record, I knew the next one would be better…